I had planned to be away for this Diamond Jubilee birthday, so I booked a trip to Japan, to be able to take in the Bach Collegium Japan concert. As it turned out, however, I returned last Monday, several days before my actual birthday because I didn’t want to be gone longer than a week.… Read More Prehistoric!
That’s how I felt when I ordered sushi at Haneda Airport as I was departing Japan. Like many other people, one of my goals was to eat good food while in Japan, and sushi was on my list! In the slideshow below you can see the wide variety of meals we had in a short… Read More Mission accomplished!
My husband, Carl, always dreamed of hearing the Bach Collegium Japan, his favorite interpreters of the works of Bach … in Japan! We were fortunate to hear them live — in Los Angeles, Valparaiso, and even in Leipzig, Germany, at Bach’s church, St. Thomas. They were outstanding performances, all of them. But sadly, he never… Read More Hearing Bach Collegium Japan … in Japan!
We have just come from an incredible concert, a stunning blend of East and West, in a rich and complex work by Yui Kakinuma called Messe de Muromachi. We were invited to the concert by Kensuke Ohira, one of three organists at Hijirigaoka Church, who is the artistic director of Ensemble Muromachi. The composition fuses… Read More East meets West
In May of this year, when organbuilder Hans-Ulrich Erbslöh was in Hawaii to clean and add a couple of stops to the Beckerath organ, I mentioned that I was planning to go to Japan for my birthday this year. Hans immediately said that I ought to contact Takeshi Nakazato, with whom he had gone through… Read More A day with Takeshi
Last night we were at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre to hear Jean-Philippe Merckaert play a program of Buxtehude, Bach and Bert Matter on an organ which looked like this. He chose the repertoire carefully, in which the mean-tone tuning of the organ made it sound sweet and convincing: Dieterich Buxtehude, Toccata in D minov, BuxWV… Read More An engineering marvel!
One of my goals on this trip was to visit a Beckerath organ in Japan. I asked ChatGPT for a list of Beckerath organs here and this is what I got: We tried to see the organs at Kunitachi College of Music and St. Paul’s University, but unfortunately, Kunitachi was unavailable because of another event.… Read More A Beckerath in Japan
I left Honolulu on Monday morning via ANA airlines, my first time on that carrier, and in spite of the fact that I booked my trip over three months ago, all that was left were middle seats. Still I was impressed by the outstanding service, the design of the aircraft, and fortunately, being a Star… Read More Memories of Paris in Japan?
Oh no. Not now! As I started playing the second hymn at Nuuanu Congregational Church this morning, I could see the telltale symptoms of an ocular migraine starting. A tiny medallion appeared in my vision, and it was pulsating, shimmering larger and smaller with every moment. It appeared in both eyes. In case you’ve never… Read More Terrifying
Two weeks from tomorrow, I’ll be getting on a plane to Tokyo, Japan, to celebrate a milestone birthday. I wanted to do something different for my birthday instead of going to California to be with my family, as I’ve done for years. I’m not sure who told me about it, but I found out that… Read More Destination: TOKYO!